


How to Write a Rivalry

by thehufflepuffreference



Series: Write Me Like A Love Song [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Alternate Universe - Youtubers, Bisexual Disaster Lance (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Gen, Klance Rivalry, M/M, Other, Rivals, Trans Keith (Voltron), Trans Male Character, Trans Male Keith (Voltron), YouTube, Youtube AU, Youtuber AU, broganes, oh my god they were roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 10:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21967984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehufflepuffreference/pseuds/thehufflepuffreference
Summary: The Rivalry (TM) begins. Lance and Keith try to navigate a newfound understanding of each other as well as their relationship which remains rocky. Lance's followers get antsy about fulfilling Klance content, which sparks a challenge.“Oh you’reonMullet.” Keith chuckled at Lance, which caused the other man to narrow his eyes at him. “I don’t know how yet, but you’re going down.”
Relationships: Allura & Hunk & Keith & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt & Shiro, Keith & Lance (Voltron), Keith & Voltron Paladins, Keith/Lance (Voltron), Lance & Voltron Paladins
Series: Write Me Like A Love Song [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1317266
Comments: 4
Kudos: 65





	1. Rising to an Unknown Challenge

**Author's Note:**

> I've already started writing Part 2, so that should be up tomorrow or the next day, and the final section should be up by Monday, but I work 14 hour shifts over the weekend, so we'll see, it might be Tuesday (12/31).

Lance rolls his eyes and closes the lid of his laptop with both hands, spreading them flat across the top and heaves a large sigh. Keith looks up at him with a raised eyebrow from his spot across the kitchen table where he is immersed in sketches and more in-depth designs for that semester’s large smithing project. Lance says nothing, so Keith narrows his eyes at the other student before going back to his project. Less than a minute passes before Lance sighs again. Keith looks up with both eyebrows raised this time. Lance is leaned back in his chair, head hanging back, and arms dangling at his sides. Keith can’t see below the table, but he’s sure Lance’s legs are spread out straight, as if he’d been knocked out into the chair. Again, Keith waits for Lance to speak, but following a third sigh, he purses his lips and tries to hold his patience as he asks, “What’s your problem, Lance?” 

It’s a little more aggressive than he means it to be. Lance practically flies back into an upright position, fingers gripping the edge of the table, a glare leveled directly against Keith’s own. “What’s your problem, Mullet?” This prompts Keith to sigh himself. 

“Why are you sighing, Lance?” He tries again. Lance relaxes a bit back into his seat. He fidgets, and Keith waits for him to find the words. 

“I’m getting frustrated with my channel’s comments.” He replies. 

“What do you think sighing to me is going to do to change that?” Keith asks, genuinely confused. 

“Well, they’re all about you.” Lance snaps, arms crossed, and lips set in a little pout. Keith’s face contorts through a series of emotions before landing on vaguely unsettled. 

“About—Why the hell would they be about _me_?” 

“Because, Keith,” Lance starts, spitting Keith’s name in the same way that always seems to start a fight, “My ‘followers,’” Lance’s use of air quotes was only serving to make Keith more exasperated with him, “Think that we don’t spend enough time together.” 

“What, what does that even mean?” Keith shakes his head, his brow furrowed. 

“They say that I have collabs way more frequently with the other guys than we have together, and that’s not fair to you to not feature you as much. And _then_ someone had the _audacity_ to start a rumor that I’m too chicken to have you on my channel because you’re such a badass, and will surely show me up.” Lance wrinkles his nose in distaste and continues to glare at Keith, who snorts in response. 

“That’s ridiculous. Why are you even getting worked up about that?” 

“Because there’s no way _you_ could show me up on my own channel!” Lance waved his hands around as if he could paint Keith a picture of how obvious his statement was.

“You’re right.” Keith says, deadpan. Lance knocks his chair back as he jumps up in victory. “But only because you never do anything on your channel that would warrant me showing you up.” Keith finishes, and Lance throws his hands back down on the table, leaning forwards to level his blue eyes at Keith. Keith smirked right back. 

“Oh you’re **on** Mullet.” Keith chuckled at Lance, which caused the other man to narrow his eyes at him. “I don’t know how yet, but you’re going down.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Last Shred of Truth is set tentatively around American Thanksgiving, and this fic begins roughly a week after they'd be back from winter break, so about the third week in January? 
> 
> This was a big road block in getting back into writing the meat of this series. After getting their rivalry on the road, the rest of the friendships sort of take shape in my head. I have the next two parts outlined pretty well, but I need some more ideas for what Lance could be doing in vlogs (and song recs for him to cover!) if anyone has any suggestions. 
> 
> If you're still reading this note, and still reading this series, thank you! I really appreciate it, and I hope I'm living up to your expectations. This, and the next several fics will deal way less with Keith being trans/Lance being Bi, and way more with YouTube, college, and the relationships between Voltron. 
> 
> As always, I'm not a trans man, nor a YouTuber, nor an expert in any field other than customer service. So if there's anything you've seen that you felt was offensive or wrong in any way, let me know please. 
> 
> Thank you for sticking around.
> 
> Keep Rocking On,
> 
> THR  
> 


	2. Throwing the Gauntlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rivalry begins. Keith's feelings about it are revealed. The challenge goes down.

They’re back from winter break for about a month before the challenge comes up again. It’s after a game night with the whole house, and everyone is a little on edge from the constant bickering between Keith and Lance. Shiro realized pretty quickly that going with Pidge’s idea of Monopoly was a big mistake, as Lance immediately declared he’d wipe the board with Keith, causing Keith to retaliate, and the competition between the two to make the game less fun than it already happened to be.

The game actually ended with Hunk showing an uncharacteristic temper, and sweeping all the pieces off the board towards himself, declaring his own victory. Lance had squawked in outrage, and Keith had shouted that he was cheating, then they had squared against each other again. Allura ended up yanking Lance from the room by his collar, and Pidge had grabbed Keith’s ear to haul him the other way. As they’re being pulled away, Lance calls to Keith an official challenge.

“Alright, Keith. You, me, my channel, Tuesday after classes. Let’s see who’s better once and for all.”

Keith rolls his eyes and shouts back, “You’re on, McClain. But you better get ready to lose!” Pidge covers his mouth and keeps pulling him to his room.

~*~*~*~

Shiro finds Keith later on, headphones on, sprawled across his bedroom floor, researching blade designs on his laptop. He smiles warmly down at his little brother until the younger man takes notice of his presence. Keith starts to return his smile, but catches himself and his expression shifts to one of suspicion. “What do you want?”

Shiro chuckles at him, and lowers himself to the floor, careful to balance toward his left as he’d already removed his prosthetic for the night. “That’s not a very warm welcome, Keith.” Keith rolls his eyes, and lifts an eyebrow. “Okay, okay.” Shiro raises his hand in supplication. “I wanted to talk to you about this thing with Lance.” Keith scoffs. 

“There’s not really a ‘thing,’ he’s got in his head that we’re rivals of some sort. I don’t know how to respond, I guess.” Keith shifts uncomfortably, pushing himself up onto his knees so he’s sitting facing his brother.

“Well, I can see that he pushes your buttons.” Shiro jibes, smirking at Keith in a knowing way that makes Keith want to push _him_ out the door. Instead, he crosses his arms and mumbles,

“He just…when he says things, I don’t know why I respond the way I do, but he knows how to say them in a way that makes me want to push back against him. It’s kind of fun. I just don’t think he feels the same way? Does that make sense?”

Shiro hums, and says, “I think I understand. Does that bother you?”

“I don’t **know** , Takashi.” Keith sounds genuinely frustrated, which makes Shiro want to wrap his little brother up and keep him on a shelf to coo at for being too cute. He represses his gushy brotherly feelings and aims for an understanding, supportive facial expression, but ends up looking a little constipated. Luckily Keith isn’t looking at him to judge. “I want to consider him a friend. I know him as well as I know the others in the house by now. But it doesn’t…really seem like he wants to be my friend.” Shiro nods, trying to pull together his thoughts and theories enough to create a consoling message.

“I think, that maybe he doesn’t know how to make friends in different ways, and he might be trying to befriend you in a way that isn’t the best approach?” It sounded better in his head, if Shiro was going to be honest. Keith scowls and curls into himself a little. “I mean that, maybe Lance has some confusing feelings regarding your relationship to each other, considering the slightly rocky start you to had. And he’s trying to parse out how to bond with you when his usual ways might make you uncomfortable. He even bonded with Pidge first over offering her a makeover.” Keith raises an eyebrow at that too. Pidge? Getting a makeover? (It’s more likely than you’d think). Shiro laughs at him. “I know, but sometimes even that gremlin likes to be pampered.” He stands up, ruffling Keith’s hair as he turns to go. “Anyway, that’s all I wanted to talk about. I’ll let you get back to your research. Meet you at the gym tomorrow afternoon?” Keith grunts in acknowledgement, and Shiro closes the door behind him. Keith flops back down onto the floor and thinks about their conversation.

~*~*~*~

The three days until Tuesday pass quickly, as Lance all but vibrates in anticipation for his first challenge with Keith. Or, series of challenges, as it were. He has a bracket of competitions lined up…old YouTube challenges he and Keith had missed out on as their channels were relatively new. They’ll start with wearing noise cancelling headphones and trying to guess what the other person was saying, and move through until they end with the infamous cinnamon challenge. Lance was sure he’d have at least the first and last challenges in the bag. He came from a big family and was familiar with reading lips, and with having three older siblings, he’d been dared into consuming large quantities of dry substances at once frequently over the years — one of which _had been_ cinnamon.

Keith walks into the kitchen promptly at 5:30. Lance already has his tripod set up in front of the kitchen table, and has just finished lining up the challenges and related accessories. Keith freezes in the doorway, trying to school his shocked expression off his face. He’s a second too slow to stop Lance from seeing it, though, and Lance smirks devilishly in response.

“You ready, Samurai?” Lance teases, and Keith snaps to attention, narrowing his eyes as he curls his lips into a reciprocal smirk. He drops his bag just inside the door, and moves beside Lance at the table. 

“Get ready to be beat, Sharpshooter.” He responds. Lance snorts a laugh and reaches across to turn the camera on.

The Sharpshooter nickname was awarded after Keith spent three hours in awe watching Pidge and Lance make their way through most of the levels of a new game, blown away by Lance’s stunning accuracy. But he'd also secretly caught Lance practicing archery by the soccer field as he’d cooled down from an evening jog, and seen his housemate make three bullseyes in a row — not that he’d ever let Lance know he’d spied on him, it was embarrassing enough to admit that his gaming abilities were impressive. 

Keith is shaken from his thoughts as the camera’s timer beeps softly and Lance begins the intro.

“Hello, Laniacs, welcome back to my channel. I know I’ve been slacking on the vlogs and covers so far this year, but hopefully after witnessing the length of this video, I’ll be forgiven. As you can see, my housemate Keith, also known as, hold your laughter please, knyfeboi, on YouTube, is joining me here today. Say ‘hi’ to the people, knyfeboi.” Keith glares at Lance before turning his attention back to the camera. He raises a hand, and tries to smile, but his lips barely turn up.

“Hi to the people.” He says, and Lance barely suppresses a chuckle.

“Today, we’re going to be completing a series of old YouTube challenges that we haven’t yet had a chance to do.” Lance outlined the challenges, recapping them for people who weren’t on YouTube when most of the challenges were popular. “Okay,” he ended, clapping his hands together once, and facing Keith, “I think we’re ready to commence the first challenge. Coran, of CHWS DIY, is here to act as an impartial party during today’s festivities.” Lance gestures to his left, where Coran appears seemingly from nowhere, making Keith startle in his seat.

“I’m honored to be here, today, my boy, truly.” Coran says, twirling one end of his mustache. He takes a seat slightly out of frame. “Alright boys, Keith will begin with the headphones. Lance, here is the first phrase Keith will be guessing. You may begin.”

Of the first challenge, Lance won 4 of the 6 rounds, Keith murmuring about a sibling advantage before moving on to trying to make the other laugh while holding water in their mouths (Keith won that round). Then onto the chubby bunny (they tied because Coran grew too disturbed and worried one would choke). They then tried to see who could drink a gallon of water the quickest (Keith also won, by less than a second — leading to a minute-long argument about the results, but Coran’s judgement would not be swayed). The two ended in a fierce stare down. They each held a spoon of cinnamon in their hands. If Keith won, he’d be the victor, if Lance won, they’d have to think of a tie-breaker challenge, since Lance didn’t account for ties. If they tied this round, Keith would still win. And Lance couldn’t let that happen. 

Coran’s countdown was almost silent under the roar of adrenaline in his ears. He and Keith shoved the spoons into their mouths. Keith held out for a pitiful second before coughing a cinnamon explosion onto the liner Lance had taped onto the table. He choked and gasped as Coran shoved a glass of water at him. Lance worked his spit further into his mouth, struggling not to follow suit. He lasted almost fifteen seconds before he had to let the cinnamon out of his mouth, but he leaned down to the trashcan below his feet so his followers wouldn’t have to see his spitty cinnamon falling from his mouth. He was also given water, and looked up at Keith, triumphant, before he remembered that they were still at a stalemate. Keith’s face was red and tear streaked, and he was still gasping and gulping water. But in his eyes, fire still glinted, ready to compete.

“Well, it seems, we are at an impasse.” Coran announced to the camera as the two boys caught their breath. “Lance has admitted he was unprepared for a tie at the end of the competition, and I admit, in part this is my fault for ceasing that horrible marshmallow monstrosity. However, I think I may have an idea.” Coran turned to the other two, mischief written all over his face, and they both had a bit of a sinking feeling. Ten minutes later, they were set back up. Lance and Keith’s hands held behind their backs, and Shiro and Allura positioned behind each (respectively), ready to be their hands. In front of them on the table were two plates, each covered with a napkin to hide the contents. The two met each other’s eyes, uncertain about their current predicament.

“Okay, Laniacs, following a short break to prepare Coran’s idea, we’re back for the tie-breaker challenge, and are joined by our lovely team mates, Shiro and Allura. You’ll know Allura from alluringadvice, and our pal Shiro is our housemate and Keith’s brother.” Lance was respecting Shiro’s current wishes to keep his YouTube channel anonymous. “For the final challenge today we’ll do doing the Not my Arms challenge, and Shiro and Allura will be acting as our arms to complete the task Coran has set in front of us, which we have no idea what it is.” Lance explained, nodding to Keith to confirm they were still on. During Lance’s description, Keith had set his mouth in a determined line, and his eyebrows were once again furrowed as he narrowed in his focus.

Shiro and Allura got into position, after Coran gave them the o.k., and Coran lifted the napkins away with a flourish. Lance and Keith both groaned as they took in the array of food set on the plates. Chicken nuggets (with sauce), a chocolate pudding cup with a spoon next to it, and a corncob which Coran instructed had to be completely clean. After Coran said, “Go!” a comedy of errors takes place. Pudding is smeared across faces, nuggets are shoved up noses and nearly into eyes, and Keith almost bites Allura’s fingers several times before she straight up just flicks him in the nose. Finally, they’re down to the final stretch. Keith is instructing Allura through grabbing the last nugget on his plate, and Lance has called “Turn,” to Shiro to get the last bit of corn off his cob. Allura is fumbling the nugget into the sauce just as Lance bites into and swallows the last kernels on the corn cob. Shiro drops it and steps back. Coran leans forward to inspect the plate, and declares Lance the winner. 

Surprisingly, Lance does not go over the top in his gloating, merely raising his own and Shiro’s hands in the air, and doing a minor version of his victory dance in front of Keith and Allura. Keith tries not to laugh at him and to keep up his grumpy facade, while Allura just loses it, stumbling backwards, only for Shiro to help steady her. 

Lance grabs Keith’s shoulder and turns him back toward the camera to end the video. Keith hands Lance a napkin, which he takes with a quiet, “Thanks.” They both smile at the camera and Lance says, “There you have it, folks, Keith Kogane, aka knyfeboi, has lost the Great Challenge Gauntlet of 2020, and I, Lance McClain am the reigning champion. How’s it feel to eat my dust, Samurai?” Lance teases Keith, knocking their shoulders together.

Keith rolls his eyes good-naturedly, “I bow to you, oh great Sharpshooter.” He joked and mockingly bowed to the other. Lance laughed out loud. 

“Thanks for joining us today, Laniacs. This is your minstrel Lancelot signing out.” Lance held a peace sign to the camera and Coran shut it off. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got away from me an unreasonable amount. It's up later than I planned in part because my life was irrevocably altered by seeing the Little Women movie today and it took me longer to recover, and also because I planned for this chapter to be a lot shorter but it took on a life of its own when I brought Coran into it. 
> 
> One more chapter left for this part, which will go into how the rivalry takes shape past this one challenge, as in the scheme of the series it goes on for several years. If you have any prank ideas or other challenge ideas, drop a comment.
> 
> If there's anything else you'd like to see, comment, or message me on tumblr @thehufflepuffreference. As always, if there's anything that seems confusing, uninformed, or harmful in any way, please let me know and I will do my best to change it. 
> 
> Keep Rocking On,
> 
> THR   
> 


	3. And So, The Rivalry Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge instills some wisdom, Lance has a devious idea, and Keith is just happy to know how he can make Lance his friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I'm sorry this is two months late. Trying to add a little bonus surprise soon.

Pidge is simply minding her own business, chilling in a blanket fort in the lounge, when she hears a shriek from down the hall. She groans and rolls over so she can see the doorway, and sure enough, less than thirty seconds later, Lance is skidding to a halt — his socks slipping on the laminate flooring. He almost slides right past the entrance, but grapples with the doorframe to stop himself. Pidge raises an eyebrow. 

“Pidge.” Lance pants, dramatically throwing his head back and grasping his shirt in a tight fist at his chest as his catches his breath. “They’ve gotten worse.” Pidge’s other eyebrow joins the first high on her forehead. 

“Who has gotten worse, Lance?” She asks, burrowing deeper into the floor of the blanket fort. Lance sighs, and gently tosses her his phone. Pidge narrows her eyes and tries to catch the device, but ends up effectively spiking it into the nest of blankets. Lance squawks at the mistreatment of his phone, but shuts up quickly as Pidge sets to reading what he’s pulled up on the screen.

“See? I thought that video would take care of the comments, but it’s just gotten worse! They’re animals, Pidgeotto.” Pidge peers up at her friend who is now slumped against the doorframe, one hand still clenching his shirt, the other thrown across his forehead as he attempts to look distressed. 

“I think you’re being dramatic.” She says, sliding his phone across the floor to his feet. “It really looks like most of them just want you two to be friends. A good number of them came from Keith’s channel and are practically starved for content involving his personality and relationships. It’s a totally different demographic and you should probably just be thankful for the exposure. I mean, Keith’s base is a lot smaller than yours, but by hosting us on your channel, you get a lot of cross-viewership. And I think it was good for you guys to hang out like that anyway. You’ve certainly been a lot more friendly to each other.” As Pidge was giving her feedback, Lance returned to a normal stance and made his way further into the room. He then ducked down to crawl inside the fort, and sat cross legged in front of her. 

“I don’t know how to be his friend, Pidge.” He confesses, looking uncharacteristically shy. Pidge squishes her face into a perplexed look. 

“What do you mean? You know how to be everybody’s friend.” Lance sighs. 

“Normally, I guess. I mean, I have theories of how to approach people and I’m normally not that far off, but with Keith it’s different. I don’t — I can’t get him to open up, and we’ve already had a couple rocky starts.” Lance cuts himself off, and frowns in concentration. Pidge is reluctant to interrupt him while he’s thinking, or trying to compose his thoughts, but she does so anyway. 

“I thought you guys had already smoothed those over? If it’s any consolation, I think he wants to be your friend, he just isn’t quite sure how to approach it. You both are a little quick to jump into anger, or to your own defense if you get ruffled though. And for some reason, you both seem to do that a lot.” Pidge shrugs, but Lance has a dawning look of comprehension. Pidge glares at him. “I don’t think I like when in my speech that look started.” Lance chuckles and reaches up to ruffle her hair as he makes his way out of the fort. 

“Thanks, Pidge. You just gave me a great idea.” 

“What? Wait! What was it? You can’t just — ugh.” She groans and buries her face in her hands. “I hate boys. I hate every boy that I live with.” A pause. “Except Hunk.” Pidge’s eyes flick to either side of her as she thinks. “And Shiro.” With that, she goes back to the tiny robot she was tinkering with before being interrupted. 

~*~*~*~ 

“Keith! Keith, wait up!” Keith looks around in bewilderment as a voice calls to him from deep within the crowd. He was just coming from his last class of the day to head to the metal shop to work on his latest project, and was surrounded by fellow students pushing to their various destinations. He pauses and waits for the person yelling at him to catch up, and is rewarded by Lance actually hauling two people out of his way to get to him. Keith has to suppress a laugh at the look on the other man’s face. His hair is sticking up all over, and he’s breathing heavily, obviously having fought or run to get here. “Hey.” Lance says, smoothing his hand over his hair and pulling himself together. 

“Hi, Lance. What’s up?” Keith asks, quirking a tiny smirk, and then turning to head to the metal shop. He jerks his head to motion Lance to follow him there. Lance falls in line beside him. 

“Well…” Lance trails off, and Keith sneaks a glance at him, concerned. Most of the times Lance has had trouble speaking to him were following some sort of miscommunication or fight they’d had where they had to explain the causes and apologize afterwards. But this wasn’t any of those times, as far as Keith could remember. “Remember how a couple weeks ago we made that Challenge Gauntlet video?” Lance asks. Keith nods, and gives a low grunt of agreement. “Okay, so the responses have been…mixed.” Keith turns to him, with a questioning tilt of the head. “Mostly positive, but a lot of people have said they still want more interaction between us. And I mean, I get it, we haven’t really done videos together except that one, and I try to respect your privacy by not putting you in a lot of my vlogs, but the people want what they want, dude, and they want us to spend more time together.” Lance waved his hand around as he talked and Keith was finding it really hard not to smile at him right then. He kept it to a small thing, but it was close. 

“Lance, are you just trying to come up with an excuse to hang out with me?” Keith asks, his amusement apparent in his voice. Lance’s eyes blew wide and his arms waved wildly.

“No, dude! Pffff, no! I just — look, it’s all in my comments. And I think it would probably be good for us to hang out anyway, I just.” He paused and heaved a deep sigh. “I had this idea. And I would like to pitch it to you, if you would allow me.” Keith let out a breathy chuckle. 

“Okay, yeah. I’ll let you ‘pitch’ me your idea if you film me in the shop today.” They had reached the door to the building, and Keith held the door open for Lance as he nodded.

~*~*~*~

The plan was this: Lance and Keith could both do with more subscribers. The subscribers they did have wanted more interaction between them. So they would try to film at least one video together a month, but within that month, they would compete to see who could rack up more followers or likes. At the end of the month, whoever the loser was would have to do something embarrassing — of the others choice. The winner wouldn’t necessarily have to be present in the video or post the loser makes. But both Keith and Lance knew they would want to be there to laugh at the other. 

And if they start appearing more in the background of each other’s videos, well…we don’t have to pretend it’s all a rivalry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're still reading this, thank you, and I'm sorry I keep making promises I don't keep. 
> 
> Posting some more chapters in *Insert Clickbait Here* soon, and probably going to make another multi-chapter fic with some of the Klance videos 
> 
> As always, if there's something you want to see, a song you want Lance to cover, or anything else, please leave a comment below or send me a message @thehufflepuffreference on tumblr. I know nothing about YouTube. 
> 
> Keep Rocking On, 
> 
> THR   
> 


End file.
